Excerpt from an Enemy Journal BotP verse
by Snowingroses
Summary: A journal is recovered from a destroyed Galactor base. What transpires from the journal and what unfolds before the recovery is just a small glimpse into an unexplored world.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own the characters or concept just the twisted idea. _

_I would like dedicate this to Spacekitty, may this sow seeds to heal the wounds of lost loved ones. _

* * *

**_Excerpt from an Enemy's Journal_**

There was nothing left of the base, save for a crater where it once stood. Charred relics of what once was littered sandy dunes, but enormous chucks of shrapnel had cut through most. Eyes blank with death followed my men's movement, as I instructed them to cover the departed.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing." Maelstrom breathed as he kicked at some orphaned charm bracelet.

I felt like joining him in kicking around some of the abandoned and burnt possessions.

The twins Heckyl and Jeckyl along with Barron X had just finished their perimeters. They were returning to our current position.

Thunderhawk, his large Viking form stood motionless with a crisp white sheet snapping between his hands and in the cold fingers of wind.

His form shifted, casting a shroud of shadow over the top of someone before he covered them with the sheet.

Later:

"Girls, women, the entire base. It is.." He starts but quickly changed it to reflect past tense. "It was made up of women." It was Thunderhawk, speaking, he spoke to no one in particular.

I thumbed idly through a scorched diary. Probably once belonged to one of the dead. Most of the pages were charred beyond reading, some crumbling at my breathing alone.

"Heat stamp." I had to muse as I flipped on through the pages. It hadn't mattered what the actual fire had not damaged, the heat had. Pages were black with blankness now.

Until midway of the book, I discovered a single surviving page though not wholly intact.

Words were bite off with blemishes of heated ink.

Excerpt from journal:

Dear Diary,

We will be working on the latest mecha today. A top secret job, so hush hush, as we have not been permitted to return home to our husbands and families. Kim must be going insane without me. Oh how I want to take him in my arms and tell him, who I am and what I do. But, alas my son must never know I am an employee of Galactor.

See, I bet you didn't know he uses women and young girls to construct and build his mecha. Why, you ask? Why not? Women are easier to control. We are not as strong, not physically nor do I suppose mentally. Just threaten our family and we will do anything you ask.

Women have smaller hands, making it easier to be more particular in performing a job. Things are done precise, and right. Hence the reason we are motherly. I suppose.

What were we building you ask? Sorry I must laugh. People just don't get it. When you say mecha, and they visualize the interior, they see flashing lights, buttons, and knobs. But I..

She paused; her sentence was interrupted perhaps by work itself.

I see wires multicolored wires, different gauges SXL GXL TXL.

What's that? Explain GXL, SXL and TXL. I chuckle as I reflect back to my first time asking that exact same question. It doesn't reflect the gauges so much as it does suggest insulations of the jacket. TXL is a light, not as bulky or cumbersome to handle. GXL is a better quality wire proving additional resistance against physical wear and tear and SXL is a heavier gauge wire. The very best for what we are doing but

The sentence or thought ended there as inky smut seemed to drift into the paragraph erasing from history the statement being made.

"I don't suppose we will ever know what our writer was going to tell us there." Anderson looked to his long time friend Colonel Cronus.

He stood his back to Anderson, his shadow casting a small shroud of darkness on the floor, depicting his life as he lived it.

_The End _


	2. Chapter 2

_**Excerpt from an Enemy's Journal**_

**The Vigil**

I watch as sun slips across the sky, its light illuminating the red atmosphere. Gases and pollution have settled heavily across our planet, aiding in our plight of self destruction, slowly we are killing ourselves.

I pull the shutters together, they snap groaning in protest. I hang my head as the black ominous fabric tumbles down, it does not cover the entire window. The material is called curtains. For my people it is the marker, foretelling a frightful outcome.

The shack I occupy with others today, is preparing for the death watch.

It is true I live on a planet slowly dying, its own dark ill-omened death. For the most part it is one we created in haste, or out of desire to live and prosper. Mining haphazardly without first examining our own out come, it is something I would like to say is not part of the problem, but that would be romanticizing things.

I feel helpless as chilling fingers of the wind find their hold and reach in through the cracks. I see the flame of the_ canwll corfe –corpse candle- _moving. The flame is taken into invisible fingers it sputters and smolders licking for oxygen. But the flame will not be immediately extinguished.

Tonight death will come as a guest and leave with company.

I draw in a ragged breath, as I hear the weeping of others. They are sentenced to suffer the same faith as I. More flames flicker wavering but not yet struggling to breath.

A woman wails for her young daughter. She will see no more. Another sobs for a husband in the Spectra army. She has not seen him in nearly two years, nor will she.

I bow down settling on the bitter cold boards. I rest my head against a cot. My thoughts sweep over the life I once had. My husband as well as a son will greet me shortly. I do not feel sad though, for I long to see them and I know my daughter in law is safe in assembly plant. My grandson Kim, I must pause as I try to recall his innocent eyes. I try hard to recall when the last time was I witnessed his laughter.

Laughter, that's what I want to be greeted with when I die, I sigh. I am so tired of the weeping, the moaning, and the fear of dying.

Soon enough we will all die, but for some it is more sudden.

My faith, no our faith was sealed today in the mines. My body has grown tired as I shift, to sit and watch the rise and fall of a friend's chest. She like I was poisoned, while working the mines.

I watch as the candle flames flicker. It is the wind courting the flame, whispering sweet nothings, promising unbridled love affairs.

The woman I watch, her breath heaves, her lungs are shuttering. Very soon I fear she will succumb to the bacteria.

I pause to recall how I saw my own mother fall to the dreaded plague that began viciously killing our kind. Then I witnessed the departure, of my own husband and the others in his mining group.

I sigh as I hear the recount of our mining expedition. The voice belongs to a male. His voice carries tragically.

"We all knew of the worries of hitting a pocket of bacterium, as we processed the mine. It boiled up as a dark cloud, like coal dust."

A second voice chimed in picking up the thread of conversation.

"Frank was the lucky one, he died instantly."

Another voice joined telling their part of the story thread.

"He would now be with us awaiting his death sentence, if he hadn't run when the Hazmat meter sounded."

I close my eyes trying hard to close out the contamination control squad. The starch white suits, the dreaded report to an already final deed. I froze as the echo of the shot rang out. It was too late to cry out. The hollow point had already penetrated his skull. He was dead and simply a mere hare's breath from hitting the ground before any of us heard the explosion of gunfire.

Long haunting shadows cast across my hands. I look up to see three candle flames caught hypnotically in an icy dance with the wind. Three more sputter protesting the ever present fingers of death.

I try to cast my gaze about the room, to give the others reassurance. It is getting harder to look at them. The lesions have begun. Large coal like patches has begun to blot my own face and skin. I can only imagine what my lungs must look like now.

Breathing comes in ragged gasps. Giving it no thought I wipe at my own mouth, as I see dark spittle, come forth from my patient. Very soon she will surrender.

A candle flame flickers, wrapped in its dance with death. The glow grows weak. I hear a child's laughter, and watch as the flame expires……

_**ende**_


	3. Chapter 3

**A Lieutenant, The Ruler**

I sit staring down at the intaglio ring on my finger, from it I look to loose leafs of paper scattered across my desk. The papers are my journal or chronicles of my life. My trials and mostly errors, made in this sentenced life.

I shove the papers into a drawer so that my lieutenant will have nothing to distract him from facing me.

"Sir!" He salutes me. I watch his eyes dart around the room. He is looking for something to focus on. It is true I put fear into my men, I must.

I have my fingers steepled, the tips are resting against my chin. I am trying hard to be tolerant of my lieutenants shall we say, fear of me. It's not as if I have shot anyone as of lately. I shrug well given time to think I suppose it has been three days since my last tirade and I didn't shot him right away. Besides it was only in the knee, to begin with.

I watch our Prince, he is antsy. His fingers twitch when he steeples them below his chin. He is angry with me. I have as of yet to speak. My eyes search around the plain dull lifeless room looking for something to settle on, anything but his piercing yellow eyes.

I have grown impatience. My lieutenant is holding me up. There are rumors and I want the either confirmed or dispelled.

"Speak." I slammed my fist down a little harder than I meant too. I now watch as my pen teeters near the edge of the table and my coffee recovers from hiccupping out of its cup.

I jumped, nearly out of my skin. The prince has grown angry with me. He demands I speak.

"Sir." I dip down at the waist. I suppose a half ass bow that will get me shot, before the meeting is concluded.

"It is confirmed sir. There are six dead. In no less than a matter of perhaps another day, the other two will die." I watch him as he breaks the steeple. He lays one arm down and across the edge of the desk. His other arm, he lays in his lap.

I fear at any moment he will pull out a gun and shoot me, but I go on explaining to him what I know.

"Sir, one of the men attempted escape. He was shot on sight."

His yellow eyes narrow to ominous deadly slits.

"Was he exposed?" I glare daggers at my lieutenant.

He stammers before, regaining enough control to assure me it was not murder.

"Sir. They hit a pocket of the bacterium. All eight of them were exposed. We took the other seven to shacks. There five have succumbed to the disease. It is a matter of time for the other two. They are... for a lack of better words Sir, eaten up."

I watch my lieutenant as he mentally paces my floors. I lean forward my chair creaks in protest. "We took them to the shacks?"

It is a question, I direct at my lieutenant like a loaded weapon. Inwardly I hope this damn fool hasn't been so brainless as to actually have exposed himself and then countless others to the blotchy plague.

I stop stand straight, in a salute stature.

"Sir." I look directly in his eyes. "I meant Hazmat took the contaminated to internment."

I watch as my master nods his head satisfied with my handling of the affairs.

"What of our base of operations, the assembly plant? Did anyone survive?"

I tap my fingers together. As much as I want to know my people are not dying off nor are they being killed off. I would really rather not discover that anyone is alive and talking either.

I watch with intensity as my lieutenant shuffles from one foot to the other. I wonder is he concocting some lie that he thinks I would like to hear, or is he about to be bearer of bad news. He drops his chin to his chest, staring down his nose to his toes. He knows I am waiting.

"Sir, no one survived the base."

I watched him; there was more he was holding back from me.

"Well, soldier?"

"The Rigian militia, kicked through the debris. They covered our dead, Sir."

I try hard to stay fixed in one spot and not bolt from the room. It is hard facing him man to man, eye to eye. I watch him rise from his chair. Not slowly but swiftly. This information has kindled his anger.

"What did they discover, anything? Nothing…. Why wasn't the place torched?"

He paced, like a caged animal taking only a few steps before stopping and returning to face the other wall.

"Get out!"

"I am finished with you."

"Leave before I decide to shoot you."

_**ENDE **_


	4. Chapter 4

**The Scientist **

_And so they say everything that glitters is not always gold._ That is the way all my chronicle entries begin.

Explosions rock my entire existence. I must flee to a shelf of beakers and flasks in a nervous shake I grab to keep my chemicals from spilling and combining. I sigh as the glass, Pyrex, and plastic containers settle from their latest shudder.

Somewhere in the distances I see a large ball of fire licking upward as its tentacles claim more and more oxygen from the air. Feelers of flames crawl outward devouring anything in its path. They call it cleansing, I call it suicide.

I must scold myself for the suggestions of suicide; I know our leader is just looking out for us. For our wellbeing, as our kinds numbers have decreased. It seems suddenly it has become more dramatic.

If I may I would like to blame that on the dark plague; it ravages wildly devouring my kind and our food source leaving in its wake, nothingness.

I sit peering down into a Petri dish. The dish as well as its content of a deceased rodent is housed in a second larger sealed Petri dish made of Teflon, with a tubing feed. This dish is then sealed in penetration proof view box.

Small amounts of oxygen are feed into the dish via the thin tubing. I look at the oxygen tank through the box. The gauge reads full. From there my eyes shift to rodent cadaver. Small black moldy spots now mark where there were once eye sockets. The nose is a tattered piece of flesh hanging by the threads of a sinus passageway.

I document the day's findings before; I clean up and leave for the night.

_**Ende**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Understanding**

I roll my shoulders as I walk down the long dark corridor with my fellow pilots. The stress is intense it burns and aches in my muscles. I've already removed my flight helmet, and am now cradling it under my arm. All I want to just toss it in. Walk away. Pretend none of this shit has ever happened.

I settle into a chair in the make shift office. I stare at the blank stark white screen of the computer. Another damn report has to be written and filed.

I glance up to be greeted by an array of five different faces, my men. I don't bother to change my expression. They know I am disgusted, tired, and feed up with the shit. They are too.

I lean back in the chair, looking from face to face, man to man. Standing before me are five uncivilized, rough-edged men. These are men that should be bothered by nothing especially death. Hell they cause more than they've seen today, but maybe things have been put into perspective for all of us today.

I suppose its one thing to battle an enemy coming at you with every intention of shoving a sniper rifle up your ass or down your throat and pulling the trigger, but to suddenly realize they use their women like they are disposable paraphernalia is another.

I kick my feet up on the cold gray steel desk. The heels of my boots send an empty thudding sound around the room. 

I nod as I ask. "Men, what's on your mind?" I continue to hold Maelstrom's stare.  
The twins Heckyl and Jeckyl slouch, as the Barron rests a knee in the seat of a chair. Thunderhawk the Norseman leans against the corner of another desk.

Maelstrom folds his arms over his chest. The right arm first followed by the left resting over it. His left hand rests over his elbow. He tilts his head to the right side. For a change I notice he isn't smoking. 

"Colonel, I don't get it."

I look to Major Maelstrom waiting for him to go on and explain what has him in such deep thought.

He doesn't speak right away and I figure now is good a time as any to have a beer. I drag my feet off the desk one at a time. With each thud of the heel, I am again reminded how hollow the base sounds.

"Boys, I think we all need a beer, before we have this talk."

I settle now on the edge of the gray steel table, my beer cradled between my hands. My men find their places of comfort. Barron settles into a chair butted against the end of a card table. I smile as the twins take their now familiar and standard position settling into two high backed barstools backwards, their positions mirrored images of the other.

Thunderhawk with his still unopened beer shoves a stack of aerial photographs to the side as he settles on the opposing side of the card table. 

Maelstrom dips his head down to his chest as he leans against a badly painted steel desk. I notice his fingers trace up and down the body of the amber glassed beer. It makes me think to glance around and see how the other men are treating their beers. The theory assuming it is true, is that a man handles and drinks his beer like he would handle his woman.

I can't help but let a fractured grin come across my face. Heckyl and Jeckyl have clanked their beers together precisely at the necks. The metal tops have been snapped off and are sent rolling across the edge of a table before they hit the ground. The two twins have already downed half of the brew. They slow now sipping at the beer, under my glare. I shake my head. As I look away, I think how they probably devour their lovers with the same unbridled passion. Living only for the moment, I muse. But I must remind myself they are still young, the concept of love is still to new to them.

Barron X sits swirling his open bottle in hand. Occasionally he sips the amber malt liquid. He is of German decent, so he tends to have an appreciation for drinking fine strong alcohol. It reminds me of some of the women he hangs out with at the Flight Guild. He tends to like his women at least as strong as his drinks. It never ceases to amaze me that he can go for hours on end gazing them. If she has a flaw he'll find it.

My attention falls to Thunderhawk, as he sits now on the other side of the card table from Baron X. He is progeny of Norseman blood. He stands a head taller than I. His hands swallow the 12 ounce bottled beer up. I barely notice the twitch of his hand as the metal top comes off into his hand. He rolls his lid up into a tiny little ball effortlessly as if it was a piece of paper. He cradles the bottle between his mammoth hands as if he is gingerly guarding it. It reminds me he handles his beer much the same way, he does his woman. So I suppose it is safe to assume Vikings aren't as brutal as history would like to claim. 

Maelstrom finally uncaps his brew, slowly with deliberate ease. He rolls the lid over between his fingers before tossing it into the pile started by the twins. He studies the neck of it admiring the long slim curvy form. Subtle hints of a woman's form, I think to myself. He brings the cold perspiring bottle to his lips, taking a slow drink of the malt amber beer.

I say nothing to them, but I am assured after our first hand view of the massacre it will only be a matter of time before Maelstrom or hell for that matter all my men go off with then intentions of securing their own blood lines. Shit war does that to a man. Makes them want to go home, to hold their women, until the fear subsides.

Then suddenly one day, they look up and discover their still all alone. Because war doesn't let you have a family and be a guardian to them and the entire damn world too.

Eventually my men will handle their beer the way I do. They will reflect on the beads of water trickling down the bottle, listen closely as the bottle hisses when it is opened. Even the fragrant smell and wispy haze coming off the top of their drink will call them back to another time to another woman. To a real woman to the woman they once passionately loved. The one that give them offspring, but by then she'll be gone. I have to stop and remind myself war doesn't let you have a lover outside of her.

I look at Maelstrom then to all of them, before I salute them with my bottle and speak. "Just remember there is no freedom from the Mistress of war."

I listen as the men shuffle their feet, mutter soft curses and glance away, at abstract objects. Talk about hitting blind targets.

Maelstrom clears his throat before speaking. "What does that have to do with using women to?" He pauses, before sweeping a hand out in front of him. "Hell, I don't know. Build that damn thing that came after us."

I level my gaze on the major. But he keeps on. "I mean it is one thing to battle someone, who is trying their ever loving best to kill us. But why the hell are they using women to build those damn ships." 

"Uhm," It is Heckyl one of the twins speaking now. "Sir, we're not going to have to fight women too are we?"

Jeckyl ribs him then the shouting match is on. Thunderhawk makes a move to break them up but, I shake my head no. "Just let them sort it out. Their brothers they'll live."

"Maybe." I added as things look like they are about to come to blows.

I ponder this as I sip at my beer. Rolling the cap over and over in my hand, I debate the question then I weigh the only answer I readily have. 

Maelstrom touched his soul patch as silently he debated his own questions.

The twins were still tied up in a heated argument as I called them down, long enough to point at the cooler with the bottles of beer resting in ice.

I received a half ass bottle neck salute in way of thanks for another round of brew, before they down the last ounce or two their first beer.

I chuckled thinking how their not much older than my own son and his friends. I just hoped Anderson will better luck his brood.

"Look, this is an alien race we combating. Now I don't know what the hell their rules of engaging in combat is, but so help me. If I can prevent it I will not be battling the lot of helpless women. I have never hit a woman, and I really have no intentions of starting now. And I will be damned if I let anyone in my outfit start."

The twins perked up along with the other men. I held my hands up. "I'm not saying don't defend yourselves, just really watch yourselves from now on out. It could be the base full of women we encountered was just a fluke. Then again we may see more of this."

"Sir, they weren't armed. Least not any we found." Barron X spoke as he grabbed his second beer.

I watched Maelstrom shift from foot to foot as he leaned against the desk. "If we didn't destroy the base."

"Then who did." Thunderhawk's deep voice rumbled in to finish Maelstroms question.

I looked to each of my men. We have been over this question no least than twenty times in the last 48 hours. In fact I personally reviewed each and every ones audio and video reels. None of them was in radius to fire on the base, little lone level it.

"Well the sweepers have gone in and began lower level clean up and removal. Maybe their shrapnel collection will turn up something." I stare down into my bottle of beer, trying to believe my own words.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Prince Ruler Leader**_

__

I pace the floors enraged. I recited the questions in my head. What had the Rigian discovered? I hoped nothing. Why hadn't the remnants of the base been torched? There shouldn't have been anything of it left. What more technology did they gain?  


__

I go over my last hasty words to the guard. I demanded he leave. I was finished with him and had even threatened to shoot him. But I did not, maybe I should have. Then again I think, maybe I should have found out what else he knew.  


__

I face the dull gun metal gray wall, with a wisp of a hand, a panel sides open revealing the flat monitor that will connect me to my leader.  


__

I bow at the waist, this obedience for my master the driving force behind all my evil ploys.

_  
I straighten to my full stature to face my master, out of habit I bring a hand up to shield my eyes from the glorious light emitting from the monitor. My eyes sting as my vision blurs. From between spread fingers I peer out, watching the great one coming into focus. The Rhombus shape fades through the brilliant glare of light, or maybe it is the light fading away, leaving the great one.  
_

__

The voice is thunderous, demanding, it frightens me. I never know when his anger will be directed at me not verbal but physically. My body quakes, but I attempt to keep it hid.  


_  
I look at the floating face. The eyes unblinking stare right though me. Master, I whisper, his name is scared gold to me.  
_

__

He speaks. "What have you learned from your latest experiment?"  


__

I bow at the waist my left hand thrusts out, my crisp cloak snaps out. 

_  
My mind reels, as I debate which experiment the master refers too. I know that if I hesitate he will probe my mind. And to have ones mind probed is to be subjected to painful feelers or mind waves. The feeling could be compared to needles being pushed into ones brain._

_  
I raise slowly, my eyes fixed to his. I speak. "The Rigian and humans alike are baffled at our debauchery."  
_

__

The master speaks. "They do not follow the concept of using women to build and construct our mecha?"

_  
Slowly I move my head from side to side. "They do not appear to follow the concept."_

_  
The master's eyes narrow, he senses something more in my thoughts. Something I have been contemplating, something revolutionary even for our kind. But this thought must wait._

_  
"Master the bacterium has claimed more lives."  
_

__

Piercing yellow eyes burrow into me. "What of the scientific experiment? The one being observed and controlled, is the bacterium found on this place called earth the same strand found on Spectra?"  


__

I drop my head. "It is same with the exception the form on earth more adapted to the environment there and it is least frequent in occurrence."  


__

I feel the intense glow falling over my bowed form, before the Spirit floods my mind with new plans and sudden urge desire to conquer.  


_**ENDE**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Anderson**_

Albert Einstein quoted in 1931 at the California Institute of Technology: _"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace…Is it not better for a man to die for a cause, in which he believes, such as peace, than to suffer for a cause in which he does not believe, such as war?"_

I measure this quote everyday. Are the lives of a few worth the lives of an entire world?

I rub my tried weary eyes as I look around my study. Warm flickers of sun rays shines through the windows. The rays illuminate photographs on my walls.

Laughter explodes from somewhere outside the four walls that surround me. I look to the window, leaning far enough to the side I am able to see an array of three youth clustered together. A little further out I see the other two dripping wet emerge from the little brook that flows behind my hidden home.

At first a small smile attempts to creep across my face. Deep down I feel laughter struggling to be expelled.

I shake my head as I watch Jason dripping wet from head to toe, check over the smallest member of the team Keyop. Satisfied the small boy is unharmed, Jason steers him into the direction of the only female on the team Princess, so named because she is the ruler of peace between them.

My smile spreads, as I watch Mark and Tiny take charge of the old log bridge that must have finally collapsed with I assume Keyop.

I begin to laugh as I watch the unlikely team I have assembled and groomed for our future.

The leader, the will power, the peace, the desire, and the strength stand assembled before me.

And so it begins we will fight for peace.

_**ENDE**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Phoenix**

The dawning of a new day found Chief Anderson entertaining dignitaries as well as fellow scientists. Crews had been working around the clock in tight knit shifts readying mankind's last hopeful redeemer from the oppression that seem to set the entire galaxy on the edge of teetering destruction.

An explosion of ravishing salamander flames licked hungrily at the mighty war bird. In a matter of seconds, perhaps in less time than it took to blink, the huge ship was fully engulfed in greedy tendrils of fire and smoke.

If the gasps and hastily muttered words were any form of measurement for how this demonstration had been received, Anderson thought, his team might very well succeed in striking a new fresh fear into the alien forms. Assuming his sources no his source was correct. Come to think of it, he could not name off a single time his source had been wrong. 

A less than feminine looking woman stood with a clipboard in her hand. She was scrawling something across the page in blue ink. Already fire extinguishers sprayed clouds of pale yellow dust onto areas not already extinguished naturally.

"Exactly how will the occupants of this said aircraft, survive the extreme temperatures as well as fumes from burning materials?" It was the woman with the clipboard inquiring.

She must have caught the arch of his brow, at her loosely based question. She pursed her lips but he ignored them.

"The ships outer shell is made out of a newly developed metal mad.."

"I know I read your hypothesis and theories alike. But what I want to know is if you really believe this? Do you think further testing is going to.." She paused to wave her hand before her. "Prove this thing will fly, even if it is in fully engulfed and another thing as I said, what of the occupants. If the heat doesn't kill them, want the toxicity over come them? "

Anderson reserved his opinion of the woman, at least until a later time when he could scrutinize her attitude without being bothered.

"If you have read my research journals you know that along with the newly designed metal." He exhaled the sentence quickly to keep her from cutting him off. "Then you would realize newer more flame retardant insulation has also been in the works of development. In fact."

She snapped her fingers and wisp her hand before him silencing him. "I know I know. You have been developing something new in it too. Frankly I hope Mr. Anderson; you have a long list of guinea pigs for this, Phoenix Project. Otherwise." She stopped letting unspoken words hang in the air, her way of threatening him.

ENDE


	9. Chapter 9

**Weapons  
**

Wads of paper litter the floor, giving the appearance that someone has had a snowball fight but instead of using snow they have used sheets of vellum.

A sweeping arch sends showers of graphite sputtering across the paper. He pauses examining the tip of the 9H pencil. His long almost feminine fingers pick up the soften lead pencil. It is a 9B. He continues to stare between to two pencils and all the discarded sheets of vellum. He sighs looking at the finished draft of the mecha that will conquer the insubordinate planet known as Earth.

A detailed anatomical drawing of a prehistoric turtle lies before him. The shell would be a rigid complex cover concealing the innermost working of the beast. A fitting fact he thought. After all a real turtle is put together much the same way, with the hard near indestructible outer shell guarding the fragile inwards of the turtle. Deep inside is where the precious hauls of Uranium would be stored.

The long pointy claws would serve purpose of digging into earth hidden storehouses. Metal against metal, surely that would be a symphony of music though perhaps not as harmonious as Mozart. Or other great musical composers this planet had held.

And speaking of Mozart, his Requiem should fittingly play in the back drop as the beast savages the wealth of such a feeble planet. A fitting end Lord Zoltar thought.


	10. Chapter 10

**And so it Begins**

_"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages." _

_  
_  
"As quoted from one of William Shakespeare's works produced between 1599 and 1600 known as_**As You Like It'**_.If you must know the exact chapter and verse it is found in _Act II scene lines 139 through 166_. And it is Jaques that speaks it to Duke Senior, when Jaques concludes Orlando enters with Adam." Lord Zoltar chuckled. "Do you want the page number?"

His eyes slid over the Titanium beast's carapace covering, its rigid scutes would reflect the mere earthling's weapons of war. The plastron would spiral open to receive and relieve the small robotically manned buggy that would retrieve the highly radioactive cases of Uranium.

The head the main control center, would house the weaponry of laser eyes. The legs besides serving the purpose of digging into the underground storehouses concealed thruster rockets. The tail could function on its own as a weapon or an instrument of destruction.

"And now we shall put into motion the play for this world's players." Lord Zoltar's voice rose over his men's celebrating cheer.

"Our first attack shall be undercover of darkness and storm directly off the coast. This is the beginning of the end for planet Earth."

There were more cheers and whoops from the guards as the boarded for the maiden flight of the Turtle King.


End file.
